IT for Change along with APC WNSP, ISIS International Manila and DAWN organised a panel titled "Governing digital spaces - The political economy of the information society and violence against women" at the 10th AWID International Forum on Women's Rights and Development held in Bangkok from the 27-30 October 2005. The proliferation of new technologies over the world has built upon and perpetuated neo-liberal market ideologies. In the dominant discourse of the information society, markets are seen as the obvious instrument for the diffusion of new technologies, over-riding the private-public-community balance. Of course, this rides on capitalist globalisation that exacerbates global inequality. Further, this impacts the production and exchange of information in serving the global public interest. The presentations made at the session examined the ways in which the Internet defies controls of legal/public institutions as understood through violence against women in/via digital spaces, and then articulated the need for alternative paradigms.
